You can go paperless in your classroom, or at least reduce the use of paper while improving your lessons. Begin planning for a paperless Earth Day, Friday, April 22, 2011. Need some ideas about alternatives to paper? Feel free to add more.

Fun tips, Steve. I'm glad you said something about reducing use as well. I've been trying to cut back for 1.5 years, but I think it is near impossible to go completely paperless without a 1: 1 environment.

Love your tips - I know my own children could have used this especially in eliminating excuses #10, #8, and #4. Since there is so much teaching about saving the Earth, it only makes sense to live it and teach by example.

I've been requiring (college) students to turn in work electronically for years. Managing a filing system on computers is just as difficult as managing a filing cabinet. If things aren't filed immediately in the right place they can be lost for years. Students can accidentally delete files or portions of files irretrievably (which is worse than the lost-in-the-backpack or dog-ate-the-homework excuse).

Students forget to save to a shared server and so lose their work.

Going paperless does not solve any of the executive function problems—it just changes them so that the conventional solutions taught to kids don't work and they need to learn new ones.

Incidentally, I've found that for grading writing and computer programs, I do need to have paper copies. I tried a couple of times marking up electronic copies, but it was far too slow and inefficient. I require electronic submission of programs so that I can test them, but for providing detailed feedback, I still need paper.

Perhaps if you don't do detailed feedback on homework, then electronic markup is not such a barrier.

Don't have your students turn in work. Rather, have them create the work on the cloud. (ie don't have them submit a word doc to you or to a dropbox, rather have them create the doc on Google Docs and just add you as an editor). Google Docs are searchable -- which eliminates 95% of "losing things" problems.

As for editing, if you are added as an editor to a Doc, it's as easy as marking up any word doc using editing features/commenting etc.

I completely agree with this IF you're students have access to technology. If they don't, this is impossible. If you're not 1:1, students don't have the flexibility to complete their work on the bus, in the car, at the basketball game, etc.

What do you do if you have students who do not have computer/internet access? I would say that about 85% of my students do, but 15% don't. I would love to go paperless, but I don't think I can ever go completely without. Thoughts?

85% is a pretty great start. Prepare collaborative work and let kids share the tech you do have. If possible, open up your classroom to cellphone/SMS/smartphone use as well.

And remember 100% paperlessness is only as important as the connections your students are able to make. So focus on bringing the network to them and on bringing them to the network. Let their voices and inquiries go beyond the classroom walls.

Since starting to use online materials for teaching several years ago, my quest has been to find an efficient way to mark students' writing without having physical print-outs to work with. Does anyone know of a system (either a program or a set of macros or some other arrangement) that would allow me to mark up students' assignments and papers without printing them out?

I'm a college instructor, and my students are writing two- to four-page assignments regularly, so I need a way to correct and comment on a lot of text, and with a certain degree of sophistication.

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Teach Paperless: Now!

TeachPaperless began in February 2009 as a blog detailing the experiences of one teacher in a paperless classroom. It has grown to be something much more than that. In January 2011, TeachPaperless became a collaboratively written blog dedicated to conversation and commentary about the intertwined worlds of digital technology, new media, and education.

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TeachPaperless was noted as a Twitterer worth ReTweeting by Education Week's Digital Education blog. Also in Ed Week: "Shelly Blake-Plock has had some really intriguing posts already this year and I'm already behind. Considering he published 639 entries on his TeachPaperless blog in 2009 it's going to be hard to keep up, but well worth the try."

“When I originally contacted Shelley last week to inquire as to whether or not he would be willing to talk to my staff, he jumped right in, and he didn’t disappoint. What impressed me most about him as I listened to him describe his practice was his clear vision of what it meant for his students to function in a classroom that he designed: it was about them learning. He truly designed the environment with their learning–their unbridled learning–in mind. His decision was not a secretarial one, but rather came from a desire to push students to take control of information gathering, processing, and creating.” – Chalkdust 101

TeachPaperless was named one of the 'Top 25 Blogs for Educators' byWorld Wide Learn.

"I think you have some great ideas for teachers, and as we do professional development around the state of Maryland, we will point teachers to your blog." Debbie Vickers of Thinkport.org a partnership between Maryland Public Television and Johns Hopkins University's Center for Technology in Education

"The invention of the computer promised to lead us to a paperless society but has failed to deliver on that promise... until now, perhaps?" TeachPaperless was featured by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning as an Everyday Innovation

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Photo Credit: MJ Wojewodzki; a portion of a painted wall in the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii [2006]